


Try To Forget Who I Am

by DefaltManifesto



Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Anger, Emotional Baggage, Gen, Gratuitous Thanking, Hopeful Ending, Male-Female Friendship, Platonic Relationships, Post Act I, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, hand holding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-21
Updated: 2018-01-21
Packaged: 2019-03-07 11:43:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13434030
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DefaltManifesto/pseuds/DefaltManifesto
Summary: Fenris isn't quite sure how to be a person. Neither is Aveline.





	Try To Forget Who I Am

**Author's Note:**

  * For [BoywithApple](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BoywithApple/gifts).



> In typical Defalt-fashion, I show up to a fandom nearly a decade late. What's up people. 
> 
> I'm almost done with DA II and have been writing this fic since I finished Act 1, re-entered Fenris' house and was like: oh hey the dead bodies are still here. Aveline would not stand for this shit. 
> 
> And thus an intensely platonic friendship fic was born. I hope you like it. Comments are loved. 
> 
> Title from Reminder by The Weeknd

Fenris spits out the last bit of foul tasting saliva in the sink before taking another swig of water and swishing it. Every night he tells himself that sleeping without nightmares is worth the taste of throwing up in the morning, and every morning, and every morning he tells himself the taste isn’t worth the sleep. He stares at himself in the mirror and tries not to laugh hysterically. Sure he’s the only one who’d hear it but he doesn’t need a reminder even to himself that he’s going crazy.

 

-.-

 

Fenris wakes up to the sound of glass being swept across broken tile. He rolls out of bed and ignores the pounding on his head as he grabs his broad sword from where it’s propped against the wall and stumbles out into the main hall. He frowns when he sees Aveline with a broom and dust pan. She doesn’t look up. After a moment, he lowers the sword so as not to caught looking like a fool when she notices him.

“What are you doing?” he asks.

“Cleaning,” she says. She picks up the full dust pan and dumps the glass into the nearby trash can you brought with her. “You may squat here without my turning you in but I’ll not have it looking like vagrants live here.”

“Isn’t that what I am?”

“Of course not,” Aveline says. She turns to look at him, leaning against the broom. “So. Are you going to help me or brood in your room all day?”

Fenris stares at her a moment, brain moving too slow to really process what’s happening. More importantly, his head hurts. “I just need some elfroot and I’ll be down.”

He steps back, leaving his sword leaning on the bannister. There’s a half empty elfroot potion on his night stand and he takes a sip to help quell enough of his headache that he can work without being obviously hung over. He heads down the stairs and Aveline hands over the broom.

“You keep it up, I’ll go raid the house keeping supplies for another one,” Aveline says.

Over the next few hours, they clear out the main entry way in front of the stairs that lead to his bedroom. Aveline doesn’t make small talk which is a blessing. He has a feeling there’s little they’d agree on even if she had been married to a Templar. It also makes it apparent that while she had come here of her own volition and was determined to help, she felt just as awkward as he did.

“I’ll put the broken tile in the back room,” she says. “It won’t be pretty but I can bring back some supplies so we can piece it back together on the floor. Better than scraping the whole thing back up.”

“Why are you doing this?” he blurts out. It comes out more hostile than he intended but before he can trip over his words in an apology, she speaks.

“Because, Fenris, no one deserves to live in conditions like these,” Aveline says.

“Anders lives in Dark Town,” Fenris says.

“And he has four walls, a door, and no broken windows,” Aveline says. “If you truly don’t want my help I can leave, but I’d like to help make the place a bit cleaner.”

“Am I some sort of pet project to you?” he asks, something dark and ugly uncurling in his chest. “Hawke too busy with her money investment to pay you mind?”

Aveline doesn’t seem impressed. “You’re not a project to me. You’re a comrade, and I’d like to think at some point we could become friends.”

Fenris stares at her, eyes searching for some sort of sign that she’s lying or looking to manipulate him. “I see.”

“No, I don’t think you do but you will,” Aveline says. “Same time tomorrow?”

It isn’t until Fenris agrees that he realizes what a bad idea that is. His mornings don’t usually involve him puking up his guts anymore but he prefers to sleep off the alcohol induced headache instead of taking elfroot for it. Even he knows that’s not a long-term solution. It’s too late to back out though. Besides, he enjoys Aveline’s quiet company more than he thought he would.

           

-.-

 

“Well I see why we’ve been avoiding your room.”

Fenris flails out of bed, landing with a thud that makes his head pound even harder than it normally does. For a long moment, he stays there. Shame sits like a cold stone in his stomach and he can’t face her. He knows what his room looks like, what it smells like, and it’s just a testament to his weakness and the fact that he can’t take care of himself.

“You should go,” he says.

“I could,” she says. “But if you think this is the first time I’ve seen addiction and you think I’m going to judge you for it…you’re wrong. If you want me to stay, I can.”

"It’s not something I want to discuss,” he spits out with as much venom as he can. It’s hard when he doesn’t really feel it.

“I’m here to clean out the guest bedroom of shade corpses,” she says. “If you want to discuss it, fine, if not that’s also fine. I’ll be downstairs getting together something strong enough to clean out the stains.”

She leaves before Fenris even turns to look at her. He’s of two minds then. The first is to curl up on the ground and, embarrassingly, cry. The second is to just get up and pretend she’s never seen this or seen him at this low point. Both won’t really help but he doesn’t have the energy to have anything like a heart to heart with her even if she has been a stable companion the last few days.

The main guest room reeks. The shade corpses are little more than lumps of goo that Aveline shovels into a trash bin. She passes the shovel to Fenris when he walks in.

“The carpet is lost. We’ll tear it up and then try and salvage the floor beneath it,” Aveline says.

“Where did a city guard pick up on the finer points of house construction?” Fenris asks as he begins to shovel.

“Wesley and I built our house in Lothering from scratch,” she says as he heads to the far side of the room and flips open a pocket knife as she kneels on the ground. “Of course we hired people who knew what they were doing but we worked alongside them and picked up a few things.”

She tears through the carpet with her knife and begins rolling it back until she reaches Fenris. Then she grabs another shovel and helps him remove the rest of what they can before directing him to wheel the trash bin of the back room. When he returns, she’s already halfway done rolling back the carpet. The wood is surprisingly clean beneath.

“There’s a pail with soapy water in the hall,” she says, lifting the rolled carpet and hefting it up on one shoulder with more grace than Fenris would have thought possible. “Start in on the cleaning and I’ll join you in a moment.”

Something about her phrasing makes him bristle, the numbness from earlier in the morning burning away as anger rushes through him. He whirls and punches the wall before he does something stupid. His emotions do a complicated thing then. His hand feels pain and the anger dissolves, then shame chases after it for reacting in such a ridiculous way to a simple comment, and after that, there’s nothing.

"I can leave if you wish,” Aveline says. “I’ve been rather pushy, I know that, but if you need some time-“

“I’m fine,” he says. “Just something in your voice-“ He cuts himself off, not wanting to divulge unnecessary information. His inability to function is already apparent.

“I understand,” she says as she moves past him. “We all have things that bring forth uncomfortable memories.”

She’s gone before he can think of a response.

 

-.-

 

They scrub the floor clean together in silence. By the time they’re done, Fenris feels like his nose has been burned out by the smell of whatever disinfectant Aveline managed to get her hands on. He’s worked through several apologies for his outburst in his head. He’s not quite sure how he’d spit any of them out, so instead he thanks Aveline for her time and heads upstairs to numb his brain with expensive alcohol.

 

-.-

 

Fenris doesn’t realize that Aveline knows what he’s going through until they’re cleaning out the basement. There’s an ogre carcass down there, cut open and mutilated for what was doubtless some sort of blood magic experiment before Danarius had fled. He’s about to make a remark when he catches a glance of Aveline’s face. She’s gone pale, eyes distant. He steps in front of her and her pupils don’t dilate, confirming that wherever her mind has gone, it’s not here.

“Aveline,” he says, then reaches out and touches the back of her hand with as light of a touch as he can stand.

She startles away, blinking rapidly. “My apologies. For a moment I…I thought I was somewhere else.”

“Lothering,” Fenris says.

“Yes. Just before I had to kill Wesley, we fought an ogre,” she says. She gives him a tight smile. “Silly isn’t it? One bad experience and then I see a corpse and lose it.”

Fenris swallows and ducks his head, unable to meet her eyes as the familiar shame rises up within him. “Only as silly as it is for me to respond like a petulant child when someone gives me an order.”

Aveline hums a sound of agreement. “Thank you, Fenris. For understanding. I know it’s nothing like what you’ve been through-“

“I’m sorry,” he interrupts. “I know I complain often about my situation and insult Anders and Hawke about their misconstrued notion of oppression, but that doesn’t…killing someone you love is a hard thing to cope with, especially when it was not something done out of self-defense but out of mercy.”

“Thank you, Fenris,” Aveline says. She curls her fingers around his hand for a quick squeeze before pulling away. “It means more than you know to hear you say that. Now…let’s clean up, shall we?”

 

-.-

 

It takes a better part of a month to dispose of all the waste. Once the kitchen is clear, Aveline insists on cooking dinner for them both twice a week when they’re done working. She’s normally a quiet woman, but given Fenris’ reluctance to talk, she doesn’t seem to have a problem filling the silence with tales of her work in the Ferelden army before the Blight. She talks of falling in love with Wesley while on a joint mission between the army and Templars. There’s a fondness in her voice when she talks of him that fills Fenris with longing that he’s not sure how to deal with. It’s not that he longs for her after all.     

He just wishes he had someone who was that fiercely devoted, even if it was a friend. Romance isn’t something he had much interest in, perhaps because of some repressed memory he can no longer recall or perhaps because the concept is as intangible as his lost memories. He just wants a friend. It’s a foolish thing to desire.

“Wesley was lucky to have you,” he says as they sit beside one another coating the backs of tiles with glue and fixing them in place on the floor.

"I was lucky to have him,” she says. “I hope I’m not boring you talking of him. Hawke says it worries her that I can’t seem to stop thinking of everything in relation to what Wesley would do or say. Perhaps she’s right.”

"If that’s what you’re guilty of then I am too,” he says. He curses then when his fingers try to stick to the tile. “All I can think about is Danarius.”

Aveline makes a noise he knows now means that she’s thinking of a response.

“I think at some point, we need to let go of our pasts,” she says. “But for you, Danarius isn’t a part of your past, he’s a part of your future and you can’t move passed that until he’s been dealt with.”

“Guard Captain, are you insinuating I should murder my former master?” Fenris asks, faking an appalled tone.

“As the Guard Captain, I encourage you to seek restitution through legal channels,” Aveline says. “As your friend, I encourage you to rip that bastard’s heart out.”

The laugh startles them both. Fenris tries to stifle it, but then it gets louder and louder until he’s leaning back on his hands with his head tilted up as he laughs. There’s a hysterical note to it. His stomach starts to ache and he can feel his eyes tearing up and he doesn’t know why. By the time he can stop, his ribs ache and he’s flat on his back staring at the ceiling as the usual feeling of shame begins to creep its way back out from wherever the laughter had chased it.

"Something is very wrong with me,” he says after a moment.

“Laughing hysterically is how I coped the first time I killed someone,” Aveline says. “Sometimes I do it after nightmares too. I think sometimes our brains aren’t sure how to deal with something, so we just laugh instead whether it’s appropriate or not be damned.”

“No I mean…” Fenris exhales. “The drinking. I should really stop drinking. If I keep avoiding my thoughts this way, I’m setting up for more laughing at an even more inappropriate time.”

“I think that’s a smart move,” Aveline says. “The drinking certainly isn’t helping…”

“I just don’t want to think,” Fenris says, voice soft with a vulnerability he didn’t know he was capable of.

“I know,” Aveline says, stretching out beside him on her back. “I didn’t want to either after Wesley and that’s why I threw myself into the guard the way I did. It wasn’t until I passed out from exhaustion that I realized I had to stop and deal with what I was feeling.”

Fenris stares at the ceiling for a long moment as he mulls over her words. “And what was it that you were feeling?”

“Grief. For Wesley, for my home, the life I had started to build, the future I wanted,” Aveline says. “It’s a hard emotion. Anger is easy, Fenris, but it only gets us so far when it comes to confronting our pasts.”

Her hand brushes his as she shifts on the ground and he can’t help but reach out and grab it, clinging to it with a tight grip as his thoughts whirl around inside. She squeezes back and waits. It feels like his blood is roaring in his ears. There’s truth in her words, he knows that, and yet all he can do is grip her hand as his breathing grows ragged.

“I don’t remember what anything else feels like,” he says, voice strained.

“So stick with what you know,” Aveline says, thumb rubbing the back of his hand. “One day at a time.”

“And if all I know is anger?”

“You’ll know when it’s time to let it go,” Aveline says. “Something will tell you, either in your head, or you’ll be like me and just pass out until the doctors order bedrest and threaten to strap you to the damn bed.”

Fenris snorts and then turns his head to look at her. She continues to look at the ceiling. “Thank you, Aveline.”

She turns and looks at him, a smile tugging at her lips. “You’re welcome.”

           

-.-

 

Fenris sells the wine, all of it except for one bottle. He uses the money to fix up the rooms with nice curtains and cheap but functional furniture. He gets an actual mattress.

Most nights, he paces as his thoughts spiral and turn on themselves, twisting into knots that he then must piece back apart until he can finally fall asleep. Sometimes, that’s not enough. He convinces Carver to walk him through some of the Templar training just so he can have a new style of fighting and spends the long hours between midnight and dawn running himself through drills until exhaustion takes him.

It’s still not healthy, but it’s better than drinking himself into a stupor. His head thanks him for it.

 

-.-

 

Over the next few months, Aveline continues to visit with him. There’s nothing left to clean, but she comes over and cooks dinner a few times a week and complains about her day or tells him stories of ridiculous things the newest recruits have done. He finds himself enraptured by the stories. He has nothing he wishes to do, no friends to go out with, or adventures to be had and he won’t until Hawke decides he’s of some use.

So instead he lives vicariously through her stories and marvels at what a real life would feel like and be like.

 

-.-

 

One day, almost a year after Aveline first woke him with the sound of her cleaning, she comes to his home to a surprise. He’d taken to learning to cook at night instead of train, the exercise of his mind much more productive than that of his body and more rewarding too. He’d known how to cook as a slave, sure. But this was learning how to cook the way he wanted, and none of it was fancy Tevinter dishes which now made his stomach roll and his head spin when he smelled them in the market.

"This is…unexpected,” Aveline says as she sits at the small island kitchen as she watches him finish plating the food.

“Yes well…” Fenris flushes and turns around towards the sink to busy himself with washing his hands to hide it. “It’s a thank you for everything you’ve done for me.”

“Fenris…”       

He takes a deep breath and turns to look at her. “I’m not…better yet. I don’t know if or when I’ll ever be but if I ever truly heal, I know I’ll have you to thank for setting me on the right path. Plus, you’ve fed me quite a lot over the last year. It’s only right if I return that favor, I should think.”

Aveline smiles. “I’m glad to hear it Fenris. Thank you.”

He frowns. “What for?”

“For letting me be your friend,” Aveline says. “Kirkwall is still lonely to me. I’m glad I have you as a friend.”

Fenris flushes again but he doesn’t try to hide it. Instead he hands Aveline her utensils. “You’re welcome.”


End file.
